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Tuesday, January 05, 2016

Moriarty (Anthony Horowitz)

Days after Holmes and his arch-enemy Moriarty fall to their doom at the Reichenbach Falls, Pinkerton agent Frederick Chase arrives from New York. The death of Moriarty has created a poisonous vacuum, which has been swiftly filled by a fiendish new criminal mastermind.

Assisted by Inspector Athelney Jones, a devoted student of Holmes' methods of investigation and deduction, Chase must hunt down this shadowy figure, a man much feared but seldom seen, a man determined to engulf London in a tide of murder and menace.

Quote: "How could I have forgotten that this descendant of one of America's most famous families had been sent to the court of King James? A seat had actually been reserved for Robert Lincoln at the Ford Theatre on the night his father had been assassinated and the sympathy that many people felt for him had been translated into enthusiastic support. It was said that Lincoln might himself run for president at the time of the next election."

Why this book speaks to me: A good crime novel needs to keep the reader guessing; it needs to keep them suspecting everyone and questioning their motives: scrutinising their characters. This has achieved it masterfully. Each new character that was introduced could have been a new link to the crime lord or a suspect. The plot was incredibly fast, even for a book of this genre. Two out of three chapters ended with a point that made me want to keep reading. Towards the end, it somehow becomes even faster and more intense.
Anthony Horowitz seems to enjoy surprising his readers: he did it in The House of Silk and managed to do it again. I was completely shocked by the ending. I did have the feeling that something was going to happen. Something had to happen considering the title of the book, but I never expected that!
It was indeed very clever and incredibly deceptive at the same time!
I highly recommend this to all Sherlock Holmes fans, even more than House of Silk, and I will continue to read Anthony Horowitz novels. He has my full support!